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MCP Servers for VS Code

VS Code reads its servers from .vscode/mcp.json. Of the 54 394 we track, 20 798 answer right now without any credentials, 8 428 sign you in through the browser and 3 298 want an API key you paste into the config. The blocks below are ready to paste — each is built from the address we actually reached, in the format this client expects.

What 54 394 servers look like from VS Code

Work as is answering now, no credentials asked 20 798 38.2%
Browser sign-in you authorise once, the client keeps the session 8 428 15.5%
Need a key you paste a key from the vendor into the config 3 298 6.1%
Run locally installed from a package, nothing to reach over the network 14 911 27.4%
Not responding listed as active, answer nothing 6 963 12.8%
Availability, last 24 hours share of the 39 483 remote servers answering, hour by hour
24 hours agonow
20 798
work with no key
answering now and open to anonymous clients
8 428
sign in through the browser
you authorise once, the client keeps the session
3 298
need an API key
you paste a key from the vendor into the config
14 911
run on your machine
installed from npm or PyPI, no uptime to measure
6 963
listed but dead
skip these — the registry still calls them active

How to add a server to VS Code

per workspace, so it travels with the repository
Add the file to the workspace

It lives next to your other editor settings, so it can be committed and shared with the team.

mkdir -p .vscode && touch .vscode/mcp.json
Paste the server block

Take it from any server card here — the address comes from our last successful handshake.

Use it from agent mode

MCP tools are available to the agent, not to plain chat completion. If nothing shows up, check which mode you are in before touching the config.

What it looks like

a real server, not a placeholder
.vscode/mcp.json Browser Use → 
{
  "servers": {
    "browser-use": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://api.browser-use.com/v3/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Servers to start with

all 54 394 in the catalogue →
Browser Use
by browser-use

Browser agents and stealth cloud browsers for AI: run web tasks, fill forms, extract data.

1 553 680 installs/wk 7 tools answering
Playwright MCP
by microsoft

Playwright Tools for MCP

10 560 609 installs/wk local only
Firebase MCP
by firebase

Gives AI development tools Firebase-specific capabilities and expertise.

4 737 199 installs/wk local only
Storybook MCP Addon
by storybookjs

Help agents automatically write and test stories for your UI components.

3 446 933 installs/wk local only
Context7
by upstash

Up-to-date docs for AI agents

741 246 installs/wk 2 tools answering
Chrome DevTools MCP
by chromedevtools

MCP server for Chrome DevTools

1 865 622 installs/wk local only
color-space
by colorjs

Conversions across 221 color spaces, tested against cited sources: CSS strings, gamut, LUTs

1 240 890 installs/wk local only
Firecrawl MCP Server
by firecrawl

Firecrawl, the context API for AI agents: search, scrape, interact with the web, plus paper search.

168 149 installs/wk 3 tools answering
Hermoso
by hermoso-ai

AI marketing agent and AI ad generator: 1178 tools, usable alone. No model markup on Starter and up.

10 063 installs/wk 205 tools answering
Snyk
by snyk

Easily find and fix security issues in your applications leveraging Snyk platform capabilities.

786 011 installs/wk local only
Telnyx
by team-telnyx

Official TypeScript library for the Telnyx API

785 632 installs/wk local only
e2e
by tester-army

Open live web and mobile app sessions from an e2e project to inspect the app and try locators.

727 878 installs/wk local only
Browse all 54 394 servers the list is the same for every client — only the config differs

Things that trip people up with VS Code

Written from how VS Code reads its config, not from its release notes.

The file is shared with the team
Because it sits in the repository, everyone who clones it gets the same servers. Keep secrets out of it — a token committed to a config file is a token published.
Why do the tools not appear?
Two usual causes: you are not in agent mode, or the server requires credentials and answered with a challenge. The second case is not a failure — 27% of remote servers do exactly that.
Workspace file or user settings?
The workspace file travels with the repository and describes what this project needs. User settings apply everywhere. Anything touching production data belongs in the first, not the second.
Can a config from Cursor be reused?
Not as is. VS Code reads a top-level servers object rather than mcpServers, and each entry states its type: stdio for a command, http or sse for an address. What sits inside the entry stays the same.
How to tell a working server from a listed one?
Not from the catalogue entry: 2 245 servers are marked active in the official registry and respond to nothing. Every server page here shows the result of our last handshake, repeated every 15 minutes.
Do local servers need anything installed first?
They are fetched by the package runner on first launch, so nothing to install by hand — but the runner itself must be present. A missing npx or uvx looks exactly like a broken server.

Same servers, other clients

the servers are the same — the config format is not
Windsurf

Editor with the agent built in. Takes stdio, streamable HTTP and SSE, and can carry an OAuth login for each of the three.

~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json
Cline

Autonomous agent living inside VS Code. Handles local processes and remote endpoints over streamable HTTP or SSE, but authorisation is on you — through headers or environment variables.

~/.cline/mcp.json
Gemini CLI

Google's command-line agent. Takes all three transports and carries a full OAuth flow for remote servers, including service-account impersonation.

~/.gemini/settings.json
JetBrains AI Assistant

Built into the JetBrains IDEs. Configured through the settings dialog rather than a file, and it can import a config you already wrote for another client.

Settings | Tools | AI Assistant | Model Context Protocol
OpenCode

Open-source terminal agent. Local and remote servers sit in the same mcp object, told apart by a type field, and tokens are kept outside the config.

opencode.json in the project, or ~/.config/opencode/opencode.json
Claude Code

Adds servers by command, so nothing to edit by hand. Handles both local processes and remote endpoints, including OAuth logins.

run in your terminal
Cursor

Config sits in the project folder, so servers can differ per repository — useful when one project needs database access and another must not have it.

.cursor/mcp.json
Codex

The only client here that uses TOML rather than JSON, so a config copied from elsewhere will not work as is.

~/.codex/config.toml
Claude Desktop

One global config for everything, so a server added here is available in every conversation. The file starts local servers; remote ones are added in the app under Settings → Connectors.

~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json